


Count the Cost

by DarkHarmony



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bottom Dean Winchester, Boyking!Sam, Canon complaint Suicidal Sam, Canon-Typical Violence, Entire season 8 fix it, Episode: s08e06 Southern Comfort, First Time, Fix It, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, MOC! Dean (Mentioned), MOC! Fix it, Not between the brothers, Past Rape/Non-con, Samulet Fix-It (Supernatural), Season/Series 11 Spoilers, Sibling Incest, Some sex at the end, Voice Mail fix-it, but just a little bit, but you knew that, gadreel fix it (not really but sort of), oh yeah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-08 18:01:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18899788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkHarmony/pseuds/DarkHarmony
Summary: "If a professional psychiatrist would have had a chance to diagnose him, they’d tell you that he was suffering from depression with a side of suicidal tendencies. A spirit can, perhaps, only break so many times before it is crushed, and Sam had reached that breaking point far before Dean threw the Samulet away.So it would not be surprising that when Dean had said, “You know what I think? I think it should have been you up there.” Sam had crumbled from the inside."So Sam leaves and goes to conquer Hell in search of Charlie. He becomes the BoyKing and rules Hell. But power doesn't corrupt Sam Winchester, instead he makes hell better. The story goes from there.What happens when Dean finds out that his baby brother is in Hell? Will he follow him? Will he stay on Earth? And can they ever repair all the damage that they did to each other in the past? Most importantly, can they ever, ever heal?





	Count the Cost

**Author's Note:**

> I'm gonna make like Vanilla Ice, tbh. "If there's a problem, Yo, I'll solve it." Everyone is either alive or will be un-deaded or sent to Heaven.  
> Also, not beta-read. All mistakes are mine. None of the characters, unfortunately, are mine. Okay, like 1 or 2 inconsequential ones. I made up Moloch- she became the empress of Hell 'cause I didn't wanna kill Crowley. Kevin's alive.  
> Either way, enjoy.

Count the Cost

_Demons run,_

_When a good man goes to war._

_The night will fall and drown the Sun_

_When a good man goes to war._

_Friendship dies and true love lies,_

_Night will fall and the dark will rise._

_When a good man goes to war._

_Demons run,_

_But count the cost._

_The battle’s won_

_But the child is lost._

-“When a Good Man Goes To War”

 

Anyone who knew Sam Winchester, _really_ knew Sam Winchester, would know that despite being one of the toughest, most badass hunters the world had ever seen, he was fragile when it came to the matters of the heart. If a professional psychiatrist would have had a chance to diagnose him, they’d tell you that he was suffering from depression with a side of suicidal tendencies. A spirit can, perhaps, only break so many times before it is crushed, and Sam had reached that breaking point far before Dean threw the Samulet away.

            So it would not be surprising that when Dean had said, “You know what I think? I think it should have been you up there.” Sam had crumbled from the inside.

            Dean went back inside their ‘home’, but Sam stood there, staring at the flames that were consuming the body of the girl who was like a little sister to him. She was dead because of Sam, because Sam couldn’t let his brother get turned into a monster. One Winchester freak was bad enough.

            Sam took a deep breath and turned away, taking with him nothing but his wallet and the amulet he’d picked up from the trash. He had work to do.

 

Hell had never been a good place to be, and getting there wasn’t easy when alive, but finding a reaper and threatening to kill it had its advantages. He had to fix what he broke, no matter how much more that broke him. And so, the Boy King walked into Hell. The first thing he did as soon as the reaper showed him the gateway and ran, was drain a demon. His blood thrummed with the taste that he hadn’t had in a long, long while. The sulfur burned his veins and the power stained his soul. Deeper and deeper Sam Winchester went.

            Every few miles, he would drain a demon, uncaring as to how much damage that would do to him. He knew that, at this rate, he wouldn’t survive ‘rehab’. Then again, how could there be rehabilitation for Lucifer’s vessel? So further on went Sam. He hadn’t taken the demon killing blade with him and had no real use for the Angel blade. By the time he had reached the seventh layer, demons had gotten the memo. They parted for him the way the Red Sea had parted for Moses. Obedient. He looked at Moloch, sitting on that throne and when she tried to choke him, Sam kept walking to her, towering above her. His eyes went black as he smirked. He stopped when his feet all but touched hers, kept his hands on the armrests, bent down so that his face was an inch away from hers and whispered:

            “You’re in my spot.”

            Electricity zinged through her and she dropped on the chair, dead. Sam clutched her by the hair and threw her on the floor, uncaring. “Bring me Crowley.”

            Crowley gulped and came forward, as Sam sat down on the throne. He rolled back his shoulders. He looked at Crowley and sighed. “I’d kill you, just on principal, but you're the only competent demon I know. You shall be my Lieutenant. You will still have the same responsibilities you previously did and the same authority. Call it management, call it charity, I don’t care. But you try to double cross me and you’ll be dead before you hit the ground. Am I clear?”

            “Yes,” was all Crowley managed to say.

            “Where is Charlie Bradbury?” he roared.

            “Not here,” spoke Crowley meekly. “I-in Heaven.”

            “Oh what, like Dean was in Heaven, last time I asked you?” he asked, choking Crowley with nothing but narrowed eyes.

            “I’m sorry! No, please! We checked with Dick in Purgatory the second you entered the first ring of Hell. We- we thought that might have been the reason. She is not in Hell, and not in purgatory. Last time, we didn’t even think that Dean- a human- might end up there.”

            Sam let out a sigh of relief. Then he calmed himself down. “Good. Now, first order of business. Call back every demon on Earth. All of them, I want them accounted for. Any who resist will be brought to me. I’ll work on them myself, make use of what Lucifer taught me in the cage. Second. Get me every demon who so much as glanced at Dean Winchester when he was here in Earth’s year 2008.”

            The demons scrabbled to follow his orders. Sam ordered a pen and a notepad. Ordered a smaller throne beside his for Crowley to sit upon. When the demons on Earth were ordered back, he commanded them to stand and wait for orders. He had a 4 step plan for Hell.

            “So, here’s what’s going to happen. Hey, Crowley, chime in when I say something that is impossible to accomplish. But the basic plan is this:

  1. A separate corner for people who sold their souls for good reason. It will be well built for bare minimum comfort. No torture, but enough ennui that it is a sacrifice.
  2. Pedophiles, rapists and sex traffickers get a different corner. Maximum torture. Limitless torture. Do whatever, go nuts. You get to go there when you’re employee of the month and such.” He looked at Crowley, “I know it’s got a few ticks, but we’ll work that out.” Crowley nodded. “Okay. So,
  3. Find out how to make Hell’s gates a valve. Souls come in, they don’t go back out. And finally:
  4. Make a mediocre torture chamber. For people who weren’t great, but were okay. Not as comfy as people who sold their souls: hot temperatures in the room, but no hot water. Cravings for cheesy pizzas but they’re lactose intolerant. That sort of thing.”



Crowley raised his hand. “I made them stand in never ending lines.”

Sam looked at him and did a ‘not bad’ face. “See!” he said to his demons. “That’s what I’m talking about. He’s a competent demon. Learn from him.”

“Thanks,” said Crowley, surprised by the younger Winchester’s praise.

“Well, it’s true,” Sam charitably nodded. “You're devious, but you’ve got street smarts. It’s why I didn’t like you. Others were easy to kill, you used your brain.”

“You’re very intelligent yourself-”

“It’s fine. I know Dean’s your favorite Winchester. It’s no big deal-”

“But you’re the smarter one,” Crowley shrugged, “Moreover, Dean’s your favorite Winchester too.”

Sam nodded, considering this. “You’re right, actually. He is. Oh that reminds me. Where is Adam Milligan? What about his mom? Also find me John Winchester while you're at it.”

“Adam’s body is in the cage,” reminded Crowley. “His soul, when Michael killed him, ended up here. His mom’s in heaven. And even your dad is here.”

“Good, good,” nodded Sam. “Bring them to me.”

Immediately, John and Adam were brought to him. John looked at him with wide, shocked eyes. Sam ignored him, choosing to go to Adam first. “Hey, Adam. Remember me?”

“Sam,” he nodded. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you.”

Sam hugged him. “No, no little brother. It wasn’t your fault. Dean and I abandoned you when you needed us. But I’m here now. While I can’t take away all the torture they did to you, I can send you to Heaven, with your mom. You want that?”

Adam, who had relaxed in Sam’s embrace, nodded into his chest. Sam patted his head and looked at Crowley. “Would you do the honors?” he asked. Crowley nodded and clicked his fingers. Adam’s soul turned from red to blue and went through the roof. Sam then looked at John.

“Hey dad!”

John staggered close to him, unbelieving. “Sam, what did you do?”

“I did what I was always meant to do,” sighed Sam. “You were right. Dean should have killed me a long time ago. But he didn’t- he couldn’t. He almost did, threatened to do so in a voicemail- long story. Anyway, I’m sending you back to Dean.”

“Where is Dean?” asked John.

“On Earth. He needs you, dad. More than ever before. But, piece of advice, don’t treat him like you did before. This is my first day and I’m sure I’ll get more demonic every following day… the one thing I’m sure will stay unchanged is how much I love Dean. I don’t think Hell can change that. So, if you ever, ever hurt him again, I _will_ come after you. You couldn’t even handle Azazel- you definitely won’t be able to handle me. I took on Lucifer and I won.”

“Sammy, I-”

“It’s Sam. And tell him Charlie’s in heaven.” He looked at Crowley who clipped his fingers and John disappeared.

 

Sam was a great king and, despite the hourly glass of demon blood, he was a good one. No demon was allowed on Earth without orders or explicit permission. Reapers, not Hell Hounds, were sent to collect the souls of deal makers. Hell got good lighting and some top notch air conditioning for the good areas. Every day, deals were still made, but only when people summoned them.

Sam found it interesting that demons made great hunters. All they wanted was death and destruction, so he sent them after monsters. In two years, Sam started making plans for expansion into Purgatory with Crowley. A whole new section was made for that, identical to purgatory. Demons would go out and pull vampires and werewolves into Hell. They wouldn’t even know the difference. Having already dealt with leviathans, and not wanting the nuisance in Hell, he told them to leave them alone and unsuspecting. Even kept a lookout for Benny.

 

When Benny was caught, twelve years after Sam had walked into Hell, he was brought before the Winchester. Sam smiled and Benny smiled back. Sam had been in the process of drinking another glass of Demon blood. As a courtesy, he offered Benny some. Benny smiled and refused. “It’s like cocaine for a vamp,” he explained.

“It’s a damn sight better than cocaine,” huffed Sam. “Or so I believe.”

After Sam downed the glass, licking his lips, he stood up and greeted Benny with a hug. “Kings of Hell give hugs now?” asked Benny, but he hugged Sam back anyway.

“We promote a lot of things, here in Hell,” smiled Sam, getting out of the hug, “toxic masculinity is not one of those.”

“Ay, say that to that brother of yours.” Sam laughed at Benny’s observation. “Where is Dean?”

“On Earth,” replied Sam, sobering up at the mention of his brother. “It’s why I was looking for you. I want you to go back to him. He needs you, Benny. He needs you badly. He’s gone off the rails-” Benny raised a pointed eyebrow and Sam smiled, allowing it. “-I know, kettle calling the pot black. But he has the Mark of Cain and he’s in trouble.”

“Wow, you Winchesters live fucked up lives, man.”

Sam nodded, empathically. “Tell me about it. Now, please, will you go to him? Will you help Dean?”

“Why aren’t you helping him?” Benny asked.

“I have Hell to run,” sighed Sam. “Even if I didn’t- Dean doesn’t want me to. I tried and I got a good friend, almost our little sister, killed in the process. And he doesn’t trust me- hasn’t trusted me since- well. I don’t think he ever really trusted me.”

“But what can I do that you can’t?”

“Benny please,” Sam snorted, humored and self-deprecating. “You’ve been more of a brother to him in one year than I have ever been. Cas let him down. I let him down. The only person who hasn’t let him down is you.” Even to Benny’s ears, it felt rehearsed. There was something about that speech, in the way it was delivered, that made him think Sam had said these exact words before, over and over, practicing. But what for?

In the end, it was that that made him decide to go back. He nodded and Sam clipped his fingers and he was gone. Crowley looked at Sam, tiny bit sympathetic. “Sam,” he softly said, “I am so sorry.”

Sam’s lip twitched but he couldn’t bring himself to smile, his heart heavy with memories. “You're a damn smart man, Crowley.”

Crowley leaned back in his smaller throne and they sat in companionable silence. Crowley brought in an iPad- they had Steve Jobs, might as well make use of him- and marathoned Game of Thrones. No one disturbed them for the rest of the day.

 

Time passed. Days turned into months. Months turned into years. Years into decades. One day, a few days shy of a century since he had claimed the crown, as he was strolling through the racks, humming Eye of the Tiger, Hell shook. He teleported back to the throne room. He had just had demon blood not five minutes ago, so he was pretty strong. Plus, years upon years of practice, with a mind like Sam’s, had made him awesome, in the original sense of the word. He looked at the man standing in front of him as all the demons were already down on their knees.

“Cain,” he said by the way of greeting. “I see you’re still alive. And have your hand.”

“Sam,” he nodded. “I was cursed by God to live. No one can kill me, not even Lucifer. Your brother, whatever else he is, is still very much human. Not so humane, but biologically, human.”

“How did you decide to grace me with your presence?”

“I came to see what was up with everybody’s least favorite place. Also, I made a deal with your brother.”

Sam’s eyes burned red. “What did you do?”

“Please, as if I want his tarnished soul!” Cain huffed and sat in Sam’s throne, legs thrown suavely over the armrest. “I would take the mark back- thus forth get my hand- and in return, I would check in with you.”

The color faded from Sam’s eyes. “So- he doesn’t have the Mark anymore?”

“No,” smiled Cain. “But now, you owe me a favor.”

Sam was so relieved he sank into the ground, tears prickling his eyes. “What do you want?”

“I don’t know Just thought it would be nice to have the Boy King owe me a favor.”

“I’m not giving you the crown,” declared Sam. He had worked hard to get Hell in top shape. Sue him, he _worried_ over it.

“I don’t want the crown,’ smiled Cain. “Just, punish the occasional rogue demon that harasses me, make the occasional deal with no benefit to Hell.”

“Deal.” Sam said. “So…” he hesitantly asked, “how’s Dean?”

Cain got up, as did Sam. Cain looked away for a second and then brought out his phone. For a second, he smiled, “You have excellent Wi-Fi here.” Sam shrugged. It was true. It kept demons in relative check. They were allowed an hour of Reddit a day. Then he passed the phone to Sam. It had pictures of Dean, John, Benny and Cas. They’d all looked better- they’d all looked worse.

“He’s okay,” Sam smiled, tear forming in his eye again.

Cain nodded. “He misses you. Like I miss Abel. Like I miss my darling, my C-” he broke off and cleared his throat. Sam looked away.

“Um, Cain… what would you take in exchange of these photos?” asked Sam.

Cain softly looked up at Sam. “I’ll trade them for a hug.” Sam raised his eyebrows. “Like I said- I miss Abel.”

Sam nodded, empathetic. He enveloped Cain in a hug and the two lost, fallen brothers found solace in the other’s arms. They held each other for a while. When they moved away, they both cleared their throat.

Cain transferred the photos. Even took a few of Sam, to give to Dean. “I got one more deal,” said Cain.

“Shoot.”

Cain brought out the Donkey Jaw Blade. “Stash this away. And don’t tell me where.” Sam nodded. “What’s it gonna cost me?”

“Would you mind terribly if I were to give you a letter to deliver to Dean?” he asked.

“Not in the least.”

So Sam sat down and gave Cain access to Hell. Even gave him a tour guide demon- not like he would need one.

_Dear Dean,_

_So… I’ve been in Hell, ruling it. As you are possibly well aware. You literally sent Cain to check on me, can you get anymore badass than that? I hope this letter reaches you in great health- which is honestly unlikely, given your dietary preferences and alcoholism, but I’ll let that slide. How is everyone else- Benny and Cas and Kevin and Dad?_

_I sent them to you, Dean. Also, I’m glad you no longer have the Mark. In case you are yet unaware- which, again, is unlikely given the genius that you are-  Charlie is in heaven (yes, I checked Purgatory) as are the Milligans. Demons are hunting, and they are much better than we ever were, so you can take a break every now and then. I have renovated Hell as well. There’s a library, if you can believe that. It’s actually pretty great._

_On the flip side, I am fulfilling my destiny at last. You would hate me, I mean, I know you already kinda do but barring that, at least if that voicemail is still valid. Not so much bloodsucking freak as drinking blood in a Martini glass: I have style, if no moral compass. But it didn’t turn me evil. It is just- normal. I’m just normal- as normal as I’ve ever been._

_I realize that I will never see you again, not in person. You’re bound for Heaven and I’m bound to Hell. On days, this thought fills me with despair- as I hope it fills you with rapture. And whenever emotions try to overpower you- nostalgia, perhaps- remember how you felt the day you wanted me gone. Feel that again, Dean. Remember that feeling._

_You were right. It should have been me up there. You should still have Charlie. I’m more sorry than I can say that she isn’t there, and I know nothing makes up for it, but let Benny try._

_I haven’t seen you in a century, but for you, it’s barely been ten months. It’s insane how that is. This gave me time to think. I have forgiven you for everything, long ago. Please, Dean, forgive yourself. And if you can, one day, years from now, forgive me. And if you are unsure of anything, please don’t let it be my love for you._

_I miss you, big brother._

_Love,_

_Sam._

_PS: Don’t let Dad bully you like before. If he’s being overwhelming, summon a demon. They wouldn’t dare touch you, but will be good for a scare. Also, say hi to the Impala for me._

When Cain returned, Sam handed him the letter, and just as quickly as he had arrived, he vanished, leaving behind a faint smell of aftershave and leather. Sam went to his chamber, asking Crowley to handle everything else, and lay down, staring at pictures of his brother. And if there was wetness on his cheek, he told himself it was sweat or moisture.

 

Was Sam surprised when he saw two demons escort Dean Winchester to the Throne room, eight years later? Not so much, no. He looked- well, beautiful as he always did. Demons bowed down to the brother of their King. Dean stood there, 10 feet away, and Sam wanted to cry.

“Dean,” he whispered in a gravelly voice.

Dean swallowed and then barreled towards him. Sam thought he might get hugged and was shocked by a punch to the gut. Demons growled around them and Sam raised a hand to stop them. If Dean wanted to beat him to death, that was his right.

“Leave!” he ordered the demons even as a barrage of slaps and punches rained on him. Whatever contact Sam could get from his big brother after all this time, he would take it with a smile. It had been much too long.

“WHAT. THE. FUCK. WERE. YOU. THINKING?” roared Dean when he was exhausted, yet the punctuations came with punches.

Sam, who had fallen to the floor, sat up. “I-? You said- you wanted me gone.”

“THAT WAS THE MARK!” Dean shouted. “I didn’t mean it, Sammy- any of it. It was you who kept me sane. Always. All this time I had Dad and Benny and Cas and Kevin and none of it- none of them- made up for a quarter of you being missing. I would trade them all in a second, less than that, to have you beside me, you dumb, stupid son of a bitch!”

“ _Sammy_?” asked Sam, brokenly. He’d never thought he would hear that word again, not from Dean’s mouth, not with love or forgiveness.

Dean’s expression changed from guilty-pissed to soft. “Sammy!” he whispered, hugging his younger brother. “Oh Sammy, my Sammy.” Sam flailed in the bear-hug but hugged Dean back just as fiercely. Dean softly kissed his neck and Sam realized they were both crying. “Come home, Sammy.”

Sam sniffed in Dean’s arms. “I _am_ home.”

Dean broke the hug and Sam’s body half-trailed after his. “Sammy, come on, please. I’m serious. Let’s go. I came to get you-”

“Dean-” Sam reluctantly shook his head. “It’s- This place needs a King. One that does not want to kill everything on the face of this planet. This place needs me. And I am monster enough to need it back.”

“You’re not a monster, Sam! We- we have a lot to talk about. But please, come back to me.”

Sam looked at Dean and then got on his knees. “Dean, I want to. Please, I really, really want to. But if I leave, then someone else will take up the throne and I can’t let Earth down like this. I just cannot. Of all my failings, I can’t let this be one of them.”

Dean looked at his brother, begging on his knees, for Dean to understand for once in his life. And for the first time, he agreed. “Okay. But I’m staying.”

Sam blinked twice, not expecting Dean to give in so quickly. “You’d do that for me?”

Dean shrugged. “A hundred and ten years… You lived without me for a hundred and ten years. You suffered, I know you did, ’cause I did too. Now, it’s been almost a year for me, but Sammy, for you-” he stopped abruptly. “Yes. I’ll stay here with you- for you. Maybe it’s time I listened to you.”

Sam huffed. “I’d say ‘I won’t let you down’, but you didn’t raise me to make false promises.”

Dean sighed. He glanced at the thrones and frowned. “Who sits on the other one?” If Sam didn’t know Dean any better, he’d say Dean was jealous. However, Sam did know Dean better, what did Dean have to be jealous about?

“Crowley,” admitted Sam.

Dean’s entire face scrunched up. “Crowley?” He looked at Sam with indignation. “You’re hooking up with Crowley?! That’s who your Queen is?”

“What?!” Sam cried in utter confusion.

“I know 110 years is a lot, but _Freaking Crowley_? And in all our years, you never once mentioned you were- what are you, bisexual?”

“Dean, what the fuck are you on about? He’s like my advisor slash second in command,” explained Sam. “And if you must know, I’m Pansexual, not that it matters. I haven’t been out of here in a hundred and ten years and I gave up sleeping with demons a hundred and sixteen years ago.”

“Wait, so all this time, you’ve not-” Dean arched his eyebrows lewdly. Sam treated him to a Sam Winchester™ bitchface.

“No Dean,” drawled Sam. I haven’t,” he repeated the eyebrow gesture, “with anyone.”

“Jesus Christ, Sam!” Dean laughed. Sam smiled at his own expense. “And I thought you were a prude before.” Then he smirked, looking at his brother’s hands. “At least you’ve got hands.” Sam turned red at that as Dean smirked. He walked over to the smaller throne and sat atop it, throwing his legs over the armrest. “Make a Queen out of me, Boy King!” he smirked.

Sam’s heart skipped a beat- or five- but he smiled down to Dean, blushing. He picked up the crown that had fallen on the ground when Dean had punched him and walked to Dean, putting it gently on his head. “Whatever you want, forever.”

Sam gave Dean his hand and Dean took it, a jolt of electricity passing through both of them. Dean got up and Sam made him sit on his throne, sitting down at Dean’s feet himself. He clapped twice and the demons that had left the room came back in.

“I know that all of you know him,” Sam spoke from his place on his brother’s feet. “But from this day forth, you will address him as King. Everything he says, goes. If he gives an order, do it. If the order clashes with one of mine, do it anyway. Dean reigns supreme. He says jump off a cliff, do it. He says thrust an Angel blade through your heart, do it; for the alternative is me. Am I clear?”

A chorus of ‘Yes, Sire’ went through the assembly.

“Sam-” started Dean, but Sam kept a palm on his foot to stop him.

“Is there a reason you haven’t bowed before your new King?” asked Sam, eyes glowing fiery red.

Immediately the assembly of demons bowed down, falling on their knees, fists upon their hearts. “Good. Now, leave us. I believe Crowley has orders for you.”

Dean smiled down at Sam, put a hand in his hair and said, “I am proud of you, Sam.” Sam had looked up at Dean, expecting disgust or hesitant acceptance. He had never expected praise. Overwhelmed, he put his head in Dean’s lap, who stroked his hair.

Sam looked up, something akin to hope mixed in with desire in his eyes. Dean leant down, their eyes never leaving contact. “Dean, I-”

A demon stood up, a crystal chalice of demon blood in his hand. It had, apparently, been an hour since his last glass. “Sire.”

Both the men started at his voice, breaking whatever moment had built up. Sam sighed inwardly, looking at the demon. “Jordan, thank you.”

Jordan nodded and handed him the chalice. Sam stole a glance at Dean before closing his eyes and downing the drink. Energy sizzled through his body, rejuvenating him. “Please get a stainless steel glass next time- or anything opaque.” Jordan stole a glance at the elder Winchester and nodded before hurrying back.

Sam turned and looked at Dean, puppy dog eyes in place. “I am so sorry, Dean. I need to take the doses every hour in order to keep them in their place. I know what you think about it, I heard the voicemail, but I assure you-”

“You keep mentioning a voicemail,” interrupted Dean, “but I don’t know what you’re talking about. What voicemail?”

Sam deflated. How could Dean not remember? How could it matter so little to Dean when it mattered so much to him? “I am well aware that it’s been years, but I don’t know how you forgot the voicemail in which you all but disowned me.”

“Say what now?”

“Dean.” Sam closed his eyes and sighed. He brought out the newest phone Crowley had acquired for him. He cleared his throat as he dialed a number and hit play. SIM after SIM, phone after phone, he had transferred the voicemail. He didn’t need it anymore, but it was a reminder of how low he could sink and how even Dean had a limit to which he would forgive.

Pathetic as it was, it was also Dean’s voice and Sam never had been good at letting go of things that were given to him by Dean. Even as a kid, there was not a time prouder than when he would wear Dean’s hand-me-downs. He would practically be swimming in the band tees or the jeans folded a million times and he would be happy and safe. The voicemail though- not so much safe, quite the opposite, really.

Dean’s voice blared from the speakers a millionth time, but it didn’t hurt any less than it did the first. When it was over, Sam anxiously chanced a look at his brother who looked aghast. “Oh God!” Dean had paled in his seat. “No, God, Sammy, No! This wasn’t me. Literally, this was not me. This is right before Lucifer, right? The night we killed Ruby?” Sam nodded, prepared for nothing and everything at once. “That is not the real voicemail. This is.”

Dean clicked a few buttons and revealed the true message. By the end of it, Sam was crying. All these years, living his life thinking his Stone Number One wanted him dead, and all for what? “This can’t be- how? Why?”

“Zachariah.” And well, yeah. Yeah, that made sense. Sam wished he was alive just so that he could gank his ass.

Sam looked at him with confusion then. “If you never wanted to kill me, why throw the amulet away?” A pulse later, he realized what he’d said and immediately backtracked. “I mean, it doesn’t matter. It was just a trinket- who cares? Not me. I just- forget I said-”

“I was an idiot,” Dean firmly declared. “I was wrong to do it. Sam, you were never the target.” He sighed then and shook his head. “That’s a lie. I wanted to hurt you the way your Heaven hurt me. I mean, yeah, I was an asshole. Complete dick move, I get that. But that was the reason.”

Sam looked away, tears on his lashes. “That wasn’t-” His voice broke. “That was not my Heaven.”

Dean scowled up at him. “What do you mean, wasn’t your Heaven?”

Sam sighed and shook his head. “Look at me, Dean. I drink demon blood. I am Lucifer’s vessel. You? Yeah you’ve hunted and killed and done some unsavory stuff, but you’re pure. You spent 30 years in Hell and didn’t break. You are Michael’s vessel. So of course you get Heaven. Me? I don’t get one. That wasn’t even in my top 100 best memories. They all ended badly. Bones passed away not two days after. I had a panic attack shortly after the dinner. And leaving for Stanford- leaving you, well.” Sam laughed as if any other voice out of his throat would be an atrocity. “That was the hardest thing I ever did. The entire walk, I cried. That night, I shouted your name, begging forgiveness. I just- I’m glad that my clone would be in heaven with you.”

“Sammy!” Dean stopped and sighed. “Why didn’t you say-?”

“I thought you knew,” confessed Sam. “Cas knew. I asked him and he said my Heaven used to have happier memories. Mom and Jess- but mostly you.”

“How could I possibly know?”

“How could you not?” Sam sounded breathless, winded. “Even if you thought I didn’t love you, look up to you- which, I mean, you’d have to be high as a kite to even imagine- but even then, did you never question how I didn’t have a single memory of Jess? I mean, I was going to marry her. I loved her with all that I was. Part of me still does.”

Dean nodded, accepting it. “She was beautiful.”

Sam smiled softly, eyes distant and fond. “She was.” He cleared his throat. “You know the damnedest thing?” Dean shook his head no. “She had the same birthday as you.”

Dean licked his lips and swallowed. “Can I ask a dumb question?”

“Better than anyone else I know,” Sam snarked without malice and had to duck a mock-punch for his trouble. He giggled and Dean allowed it with a grin.

“I’m serious, ass-face.”

“Go ahead,” Sam smiled back.

“Jess looked a lot like me.”

“That’s a statement, Dean. What are you asking?”

“You know what I’m asking.”

Sam nodded. “I do. It wasn’t like that. I mean, it was, at first. Even apart from looks, she was a lot like you.” Sam laughed a little, memories rising up. “Mouthy. God, so mouthy. And sarcastic. Hard edges, soft at the core. She would love fiercely, hate even more so. Bossy as all fuck.” He then stole a glance at Dean. “And short,” he said, bumping his shoulder against Dean’s legs.

“Hey!” cried Dean, indignation ringing in his voice. “It’s not our fault that you are seven feet tall.”

Sam smiled, looking down at his feet and drowning in memories. “But then I started to love the things she did different too. She would hum while cooking. She would dance to anything- songs, phone tunes… the kitchen timer. There would be all the free space in the world and she would come sit on my lap. She loved baseball- if the Yankees lost, there would be a fit and a half. She couldn’t say the letter H without her lips turning up in a smile. And- well, she accepted me for who I was. Sure, she didn’t know about hunting but she let me salt the door and windows. She let me paint devil traps under the carpet- guess that one didn’t help.” Tears made their way down his face as memories engulfed him. Dean pulled him up to his lap and let him cry.

“I’m sorry I asked,” he said. “It was a dumb-”

“No,” Sam interrupted him, burying himself in Dean’s chest. “It wasn’t. I- How long have you known?”

“I don’t know anything,” said Dean. “I suspected when I saw her but I dismissed it.”

“You should have said- I’d have tried to stop. Well, I did, but I’d have tried harder.”

“You don’t understand, Sam.” Dean took a deep breath. “I only suspected because I feel that way. Always have.”

Sam finally looked into the eyes of his big brother. Of the love of his life. “I don’t think you understand, Dean. I don’t just love you. I’m in love with you.”

Dean smiled up at him. “I understand perfectly. Here, I’ll prove it, lawyer-boy.” He surged up and kissed Sam.

Sam, who had been waiting for this all his life- actively praying for it, one might add- received it with numbness. A second later, his brain came back online and he kissed back with fervor and vigor. His heart stumbled when Dean licked his bottom lip, requesting entry. He let him in as, unbeknownst to him, tears started to make their way down his cheeks. This was everything he ever, ever wanted. And although he knew he had forever to spend with Dean, the wasted years still felt like wasted time. Time he would never get back.

In the middle of it, Dean parted to draw breath. He rested his head on his little brother’s shoulders and quipped, “I’d say I’m going to Hell again, but you rule it.”

Sam nudged Dean with his nose. “ _WE_ rule it.”

Dean took the soft flesh of Sam’s throat in his mouth and sucked and nibbled. “You make a good king, Sammy.”

“Yeah, well. I never wanted the throne. You suit it better.”

“No, I don’t.” The confession rang true. Dean was no king. “I wouldn’t have done what you did. Wouldn’t even have imagined it. I don’t have your sympathy or your empathy. I could never be what you are.”

“Yes you could,” said Sam, unwavering in his faith towards his elder brother. “All I am is because of you. Everything I know- well, everything that matters- came from here.” He patted Dean’s chest where his heart should be.

Dean smiled his rare genuine smile. The smile that he reserved just for Sam. Always had and then, kissing Sam’s cheek, sighed. “Sammy, I’m scared for you. After I… die. What happens then? You're the King of Hell, I believe immortality comes with the title. I’m only human. So what happens after I die?”

Sam looked at Dean, a new fear at the horizon. “Dean, I- I am so, so sorry. You can’t die as long as I am King.”

 “What do you mean?” asked Dean.

“The second you agreed to be my… whatever you chose to be, Hell chose you as the King’s “Consort”, for lack of a better word.”

“I thought… we were Kings,” Dean narrowed his eyes.

“We are! You are! I swear,” Sam backtracked. “Just... you don’t have fallen grace- which, Azazel wasn’t a demon. He was one of the Angels who followed Lucifer in his rebellion. I don’t have demon blood in me. I have fallen grace- and Hell- not the demons, but the actual place, the consciousness of the Inferno- won’t accept you. Everyone else will, because I demand it. But not Hell itself, not until…”

“Not until…?”

Sam cleared his throat and got up from his brother’s lap and started pacing. “Not until we have- until we, um…” Sam bit his lip. “Until we, er, c-consummate our- our relationship.” As a flurry of emotions crossed over Dean’s face, another demon walked in. Sam looked at him and nodded. “Talk to me, Ramiel.”

“It’s Clare,” he said. “She’s given birth to 12 pups.”

Instantly, Sam melted, forgetting all about their… aforementioned consummation. “Oh that is wonderful news. Clare is a mother! Bring the family to me.”

“Okay, what’s happening?” asked Dean, still perched on the throne.

“Oh, Dean, Clare is a Hellhound. She was due. She has babies!”

Dean frowned at Sam. “You remember how I went to Hell, right?”

“I should hope so,” huffed Ramiel. “Otherwise a lot of demons died for nothing.”

“What does he mean?” asked Dean, looking straight at Sam. Sam gulped and looked down in shame. Dean looked at the demon Ramiel. “What do you mean?”

Ramiel looked at Sam heaved a sigh and then nodded his head thus allowing Dean full access to his crimes. “Well, your majesty,” started Ramiel. “Every demon that ever so much as laid hands on you was erased from existence when Sire became King.”

“Really, Sam?”

Sam shrugged, trying for nonchalance and falling miles off the mark. “They hurt you. For four decades, three months, twelve days, seven hours, six minutes and twenty one seconds, they made you suffer and I couldn’t stop them. So when I could, they paid.”

The corner of Dean’s lips turned up as he dismissed Ramiel. He took Sam in his arms and Sam readily came to him.  “I’m sorry,” whispered Sam. “But there was never another end to those that hurt you. Never.”

“Don’t apologize for that, Sam,” Dean spoke into his neck. Sam clutched the material at the back of Dean’s shirt when Dean started sucking a hickey into his neck. “Don’t apologize for doing exactly what I would have done.”

“You don’t mean that.” Sam pulled himself out of the hug. “It has always been like that. I have always apologized for doing what you would.”

Dean blinked and stepped back. “Excuse me?”

“What, like you never noticed?” Sam scoffed. “I was blamed for starting the apocalypse, but you wanted Lilith dead too. You found out that killing her was the last seal when the Angels took you, right? But I never knew. If I had known… You honestly think I’d have done it? I broke a seal unknowingly- just as you did. And I am not undermining your strength, I am not saying you weren’t brave- you were, you are the strongest, bravest man I know, Dean. But bottom line: we both broke seals unknowingly after being manipulated by the forces of Heaven and Hell.” Sam turned around, not wanting to face his brother. “I had to apologize over and over and over again. You never had to. Everyone understood why you did what you did. No one understood the same for me.” He looked forlornly over his shoulder. “Tell me, big brother, how different were our sins, when you really look at them?”

“Sam, those are two different things.”

“You sold your soul for me and when I tried to do the same to bring you back- yes, I failed, but imagine if I wasn’t the world’s greatest fuck up and somehow managed to bring you back. Would you have been okay with it? Would I never have had to apologize for it?”

“Again, that’s different.”

Sam continued undeterred. “We were both meant to be vessels. But I had to apologize because Lucifer chose me. I didn’t want that. I never wanted that. How was it my fault? But I still had to apologize. And when I jumped in the cage- the things they did! There aren’t words in English that can describe just how bad it was. Plenty in Enochian, which I am now fluent in. It wasn’t 150 years. I did the math. It was…” he cleared his throat, “it was much longer.”

“How much longer Sam?”

Sam uncomfortably squirmed under scrutiny. “Remember when I fainted and was having Hell-ucinations?”

“That- that’s what you're calling it? Hell-ucinations?”

“Humor makes trauma easier,” he shrugged. “Would you rather I call it me seeing Hallucifer? Or ha-Luci-nations?”

“There is an option of not saying _any_ of that,” Dean said. “Now quit stalling. How much longer?”

“Two minutes on earth equals two weeks in the cage,” Sam relented. “So… Fifteen thousand, one hundred and twenty years, give or take.”

Dean sat back down on the throne, but that was more his knees giving out than any conscious decision on his part. “Fifteen… thou-? Sammy? How did you survive?”

Sam shrugged, taking his place at Dean’s feet again. “I didn’t. I mean, Alistair called you his Apprentice, but who do you think taught Alistair?”

“Sam-”

Sam looked up at Dean and shifted his position so that now he was facing him. Sam put his palms on Dean’s thighs. “I forgot what you looked like. Your scars were the first to disappear. About two centuries passed before I couldn’t remember where exactly your freckles lay. Three more centuries and I could not recall the shape of your nose. Couldn’t have picked it out if a wide array of noses were put in front of me. Then the shape of your jaw. Two thousand years later, I couldn’t remember the shape of your lips. Two thousand five hundred and I couldn’t remember how my name sounded in your voice. In nightmares, you would kill me in different ways and it was the only good part of my time there because only there could I remember what your touch felt like. I think it was somewhere around the five thousand year mark that I forgot the sound of your heartbeat when you sleep. Then I forgot how tall you were. Then, then, then… about eight thousand years later, I forgot your name. I was so afraid I’d forget you completely and then I’d be undone. Dead in every sense of the word. Nine thousand five hundred years and I forgot the word ‘Sammy’. But I fought. Not them- never them- but I kept fighting to remember you. Twelve thousand years is how long it took me to forget that you were my brother. That I had a brother. But I fought as hard and as strong as I could get and I think I borrowed some strength from you. Fifteen thousand, one hundred and twenty years…” here Sam looked up at his big brother with determination and pride, “and I never once forgot your eyes. I didn’t know who they belonged to but I knew I had to fight for him- well, I didn’t remember your gender, I forgot what gender was. Yet, they reminded me that there was more than the cage. Long after all traces of memory and personality and language and thoughts of who I was left me, long after I forgot my own name and gender and species, I remembered beauty. I thought of these green eyes and I felt loved. I forgot human touch and then I forgot touch-starvation and all idea of a home. But I remembered your eyes and they reminded me of safety. So I fought. I fought for the one with the green eyes.”

Sam swallowed and blinked. “And when I came back, when I fully remembered… I found out that I was roaming Earth without a soul. I found out everything he had done and you wouldn’t say it but you were wary, to say nothing of Bobby. So cautious.” A rouge tear made its way down Sam’s cheek. “I came back to my green eyed boy only to remember that he hated me.” He sighed and looked up, blinking way tears. “Michael did a lot of things to me down there- I’d go through a lot of them again if it meant that you’d never- None of them came close to how that felt.”

“I never hated you-”

“Yeah, you did. I came back to an ugly voicemail and an-” he stopped, not mentioning the Samulet and thinking better of it. “But still, you were nice to me. Not as nice as when were kids, but better than everyone else. I thought you’d changed. You no longer looked at me as if I were the monster, so I trusted you.” He paused to look at his brother. “And you killed Amelia Pond.”

“Sam, I was wrong, and I am more so-”

“Please, just. Don’t apologize.” He took his hands off Dean’s thighs and folded them in his own lap.  “I’m just telling you how I saw it. Amy wasn’t going to kill anymore, we both knew that. But she was-” Sam shook his head looking for words. “She was a happy memory. Just that. And when you killed her it was like you reached into my heart and ripped my smile out.”

“And then after the Leviathans, you were gone. I looked everywhere for you. I scoured Hell; well I threatened Crowley. Almost got back on the demon blood bandwagon but then Crowley allowed me an all-access pass to ensure I didn’t do that. I checked Hell and made sure you weren’t there. I never once imagined you’d be in Purgatory. I mean, me? Sure. Whatever. But you? I was about to- I didn’t want to pull you down from Heaven only for me to fuck you over somehow. But I missed you. You and Kevin and Cas. I was so, so alone. And I just-” He looked away again. “I hit a dog and met a girl.”

“That always bugged me, Sam-”

“Oh, I’m well aware.”

“No I mean, you are a careful driver. You drive like a grandma. How did you hit a dog? Like you were not doing 100 or it would be dead on impact. You were slow enough that it was feasible to take it to a vet but so fast that you couldn’t hit the brakes? What the hell kind of speed is that?”

“It wasn’t about speed,” replied Sam. “I didn’t see Riot.”

“You? You didn’t see a dog on the road?”

“I was… on my way off a cliff. The dog and the girl saved me.”

Dean couldn’t take it anymore. He came down and sat next to Sam. “Why do I not know any of this? You said you didn’t look for me.”

“NO!” Sam cried. “YOU did. You implied that in the question. Did I look for you? 15 thousand years of torture, all to save you and you ask me if I looked for you? I didn’t know how to deal with your endless faithlessness. So I let you believe what you were already believing. Oh, that God-awful year!”

“WHY DIDN’T YOU JUST TELL ME?”

“YOU SHOULD HAVE KNOWN!” Sam yelled back. “HOW COULD YOU NOT HAVE KNOWN? My first question back from Hell was not if you looked for me, so why was yours? Yeah, I am a freak and a monster. Yeah, I drank demon blood and started the apocalypse and sure I’m never getting a Heaven, but what did I do to you that was so bad that I deserved that kind of faithlessness? That I deserved you asking me if I even looked for you?” Sam wiped away stray tears, swallowing convulsively. “Maybe I betrayed you every single minute since I came out of Stanford, and yeah, I followed you because the girl I loved was dead and maybe a bit more because dad was dead, but in all these years there was never a second that I wouldn’t have traded my life for yours in a moment, less… there was never a second that I wouldn’t have gone another fifteen thousand years in the Cage if you just asked me, and if you don’t know that- well. If you don’t know that then I have nothing to say to you. Maybe it means nothing and maybe I’m less than human, and I know your life is worth a thousand of mine, but everything I’ve done since a week after dad died I have done for you.”

Dean swallowed but said nothing, which was good because Sam wasn’t done.

“And then Benny. Oh Benny hurt something fierce.” Sam let out a shaky breath. “God, I hated him so much.”

“That never made sense either,” Dean interjected. “Usually you are quick to trust… supernatural beings.”

“Usually they aren’t my replacement in your life- a better model if nothing else. An upgrade.”

“Sam, what are you talking about? No one could replace you.” Dean shook his head.

Sam rolled his eyes in exasperation. “You call each other brother. Every time the word rolled off of his mouth in his suave accent, it was like knives digging into my heart. However, every time _you_ called him that… well. That was a thousand times worse. The already embedded knives twisted. Things Lucifer did didn’t even get close. And I thought- you know-” Sam shrugged. “Well, you killed Amy but Benny was A-OK. So, obviously, I sat in my car and heard the voicemail a billion times. And again, Amy had to die because she was my decision but Benny could stay because he was yours. It wasn’t about the deed itself. It was not what I was doing, but who I was. I would always remain a monster in your eyes. And the pathetic part? I thought…” Sam looked away and finished the thought, “I thought well, if he is okay with calling bloodsucking freaks his brother, then I’m halfway there. I didn’t mind being second best, I still don’t, but that didn’t mean it never hurt.”

“My point is,” finished Sam, “all my life, I have been apologizing not for what I did but for who I am.”

“But you sent Benny back to me- despite everything.”

“Well, he was a better brother to you in a year that I have ever been. Cas and I let you down, but he didn’t. And you needed someone who wasn’t Dad to watch your back. He is a good man, though, whatever else he is. ”

“The year was emotionally draining, so when I saw an out, when I saw I could take the demons and shut the door behind me, when I saw an opportunity to get out of your way and make you proud for once, I took it. I was ready to die, happy to die, but you stopped me and like an idiot I put my faith back in you. You, on the other hand, put an Angel in me and along with him, a metaphorical knife in my back.”

“I didn’t have a choice, Sam! I’d say you’d have done the same, but I thought I knew better. So, why did you say you wouldn’t have done it, if it were me?”

“Gadreel- he… uh.” Sam took a deep breath preparing himself. “Gadreel… I was- Oh this is harder to say than I imagined.” Sam blew a breath out. “Gadreel raped me.”

Sam felt, more than saw Dean freeze; finally understanding what Sam meant. He hugged his brother. “Sam. There aren’t words-”

Sam let himself relax into the hug. “Wasn’t the first one to do it, wasn’t the last. And I know, what’s one more time, but…”

“Don’t ever think that! God, Sammy, why didn’t you say any of this? I would have tried to understand.”

“And then what? What would knowing have solved? You’d only look at me like I were a victim. Like what was done to me defines who I am. Like you're looking at me right now.”

“It doesn’t, Sam. I just… Sam!” Dean was openly crying now. “My little baby! My precious Sammy!” He kissed the top of Sam’s head, all pretense of masculinity and bravado forgotten. “When you were little, I would wrap myself around you and sleep so nothing bad could ever happen to you. Turns out I was the one that you needed protection against.”

“You didn’t know-”

“Sam, in those nightmares Lucifer gave you in hell… Did I ever, did he ever make me… r- force myself on you? I’m sorry, I don’t want to make you remember, but please?”

“Oh, no,” Sam replied. “Oh, no, no, no. He made sure I was wide awake for those.”

“How can you stand to be around me, then?”

“Because it wasn’t you. I knew that. Those were the times I knew for sure what I was fighting for, because I have seen you have sex and what those versions of you did to me was the farthest thing from making love.”

“Sammy-”

“And he got your eyes wrong. The color. You have hints of amber speckles in them and they add a hue to them in certain angles. He never could get it perfectly right.”

“There are a million things I need to apologize for-”

Sam laughed, it sounded like a cry. “If you don’t know that you're already forgiven, you don’t know me.”

“I thought I did know you,” replied Dean, “turns out I didn’t. I knew nothing.”

“You and Jon Snow have got that in common then,” Sam smiled.

Dean tried to smile but couldn’t. He took Sam’s face in his hands. “How could I have wronged you so much and not know it?”

“I’m not as into chick flicks as you previously believed, I guess.”

“Why did you stay?”

Sam looked at him, confused. “In Hell? To rule it.”

“With me,” Dean clarified. “Why did you stay after everything?”

Sam smiled sadly and Dean wondered if Sam had ever really known true happiness. “Remember when I told you, way back when, that I wanted to join Stanford again, get my degree and you said you wanted me to stay because all you had was dad and me?” Dean nodded. “I remember the look on your face, man. You were so upset and I was the one who did that. I went away once, put you through that, but to do that again? Nah, I… I vowed I’d never let that look of scared abandonment come back on your face. I mean I know I still went away a few times, but… I was never going to stay gone. And when I jumped into the pit it was for you. I know you think I did it to save the world, but I didn’t much care about it when I saw Lucifer beating you.”

“You thought I was going to kill you!” whispered Dean. Sam shrugged. “Sammy, you thought I’d kill you in your sleep!”

“Dean, without you I’d never had made it to adulthood,” said Sam. “I’m the reason for every single bad thing that happened to you. I took your mother from you. I took your childhood from you. And when you got out and had a family, I took that too. Even if I hadn’t, I belong to you.” He saw Dean’s mouth open to argue and he rushed to explain himself. “Dad handed me to you in front of mom, who was on fire. Ignoring everything else, that was a gift of a child by his father in front of a fire sacrifice. I literally belong to you. So, if you kill me, well, that is your right.”

“You didn’t take mom, Sam.”

“If I wasn’t there, if I had never been born, mom would have been alive.”

“If not for _us_ , mom and dad would never have been hit by that cupid. You wanna say you shouldn’t have been born? Fine. But then I wouldn’t have been born either, and then where would we be? AND ONE MORE THING! If you wouldn’t have started the apocalypse, Jake would have. AND he would have accepted Lucifer and we would all have died anyway.”

“You would have killed him, Dean,” replied Sam. “If you’d have salted and burned me, and went to kill Jake and get some revenge, you’d have killed Jake and Azazel. And none of it would have happened.”

“Abbadon would have come and found me. I would still have had the Mark of Cain. And I’d have killed so many- Sam, you saved me.”

“Maybe,” sighed Sam, “but you wouldn’t have gone to Hell. You wouldn’t have suffered. The truth is… I’d let the world burn, hell, I’d set fire to it myself if it meant keeping you safe.” Sam looked at him and this time, Dean didn’t see just his younger brother. He saw someone who was much older than he was. Older than civilizations themselves. “The truth is shameful, but it is the truth.”

“Since we’re telling the truth,” Dean hesitantly started, “tell me this: are you still guilty about me going to Hell?”

Sam’s lip turned up in half a smile, but his eyes were still sorrowful. “Yes. Always. This is not something that washes away time. I should know, I’ve had plenty of it.”

“Then how do you think I feel?” asked Dean, taking his hand and holding it against his heart. “Fifteen thousand years, Sam! My hell was practically a weekend party.”

“But I did it voluntarily,” Sam replied, a ghost of a smile shadowing his features. “I never once regretted it. You know that.”

“Please tell me how you forced me to go to Hell. How my time wasn’t voluntary.”

“It was, at the time,” agreed Sam. “But you have regretted it since then.”

“No I have not-”

“Don’t deny it!” Sam stopped him. “Maybe you haven’t, consciously. Maybe not knowingly. But your subconscious never did lie, big brother.” Sam kindly smiled at Dean and leaned over to press a small kiss to his cheek. “I’m okay with that, really. Just because something bad happened to me that was worse, does not erase the bad that happened to you.”

“Of course it does!” Dean looked at him in confusion. “It makes it inconsequential. It’s like crying about, I don’t know, a bad test grade when people are going hungry.”

“And it’s valid.” Sam sighed. “I used to think like that too. That I couldn’t be sad, or that my sadness was not up to the mark, so as to say, just because other people were sadder, and that is how depression works. You get sad and then you get guilty about being sad and so on ad infinitum. And if I’ve learnt anything, it’s that it’s a screwed up mentality. Imagine telling a 6 year old girl on her birthday that she can’t be happy, or that her happiness doesn’t matter just because someone, somewhere is happier. Maybe someone was getting married or getting the news that they were pregnant. That sounds insane, because it is. Pain is pain, and it matters and 40 years of it for a disappointing demon-blood drinking brother? Well!”

“What like I never once disappointed you?”

“Not once.”

“Liar! What about Amy? You just said-”

“I wasn’t disappointed. I was- well, I was angry, I was mad at you. I was disappointed in me. That I could arouse such feelings of faithlessness, that everything I did could never counteract me drinking demon blood and sleeping with Ruby and being soulless and the vessel of Lucifer.” He looked Dean in the eyes, held his gaze. “All our lives, you have never, ever disappointed me.”

“You’re talking shit!” exclaimed Dean.

“Yeah, okay, once,” relented Sam, a smile adorning his pink lips, “when I was 12 and you said you’d buy me a dog and then got me a stuffed one.”

The tense atmosphere dissipated and Dean smiled a tiny smile, involuntarily. “Dad would never let us buy a dog and you wouldn’t stop pestering us. He was _this_ close to whooping your ass.”

“He wouldn’t have hit me,” replied Sam. “He’s only ever hit me once after which you two had a shouting match. He never so much as laid a finger on me since then.”

“It wasn’t a shouting match,” confessed Dean, looking away. “After I sent you to your room, I punched him. Pretty hard.”

Sam’s eyes widened as he stared at Dean as if he’d said something sacrilegious. “No way! What!? No! What?” He looked at Dean with more hero-worship than before. “No! What- just- what? Dean! You did not!”

“I did,” said Dean. “Told him that if he ever so much as put a finger on you ever again, I’d take you and leave. That I would go underground for five years and then legally become your guardian. Said Bobby would support me.” Sam continued looked at him in shock and Dean shrugged. “No one whoops your ass but me.”

“When I sent him back, I threatened him,” Sam relented in return. “Told him he couldn’t handle me.”

Dean smirked. “Oh, I know. He told me, and I quote: “I met Sam. He said, and I quote, _don’t treat him like you did before. This is my first day and I’m sure I’ll get more demonic every following day… the one thing I’m sure will stay unchanged is how much I love Dean. I don’t think Hell can change that. So, if you ever, ever hurt him again, I will come after you. You couldn’t even handle Azazel- you definitely won’t be able to handle me. I took on Lucifer and I won._ ” That was when I realized that I had truly crossed some line. That I had truly broken you.” Dean stopped and looked straight ahead. “And that despite that, you’d always love me. And no matter what you did, I’d always- I never say this Sam, but I guess I should. I’ll love you as long as there is breath in my body.”

“You mean that?” asked Sam. “Despite everything I’ve done to you-”

“There are few things you’ve done _to_ me, Sam. Most things, you’ve done _for_ me.”

Sam got up and took Dean’s hand, leading him to his bedroom. It was oddly colorful. It felt like home. Sam walked to the big mirror and opened the drawer to pick something from it. He came over to Dean and opened him palm, wherein sat the amulet; the Samulet. Dean looked at it in wonder and then up at Sam. “How’d you track it down after all this time?”

Sam swallowed and took a deep breath. “I didn’t have to.”

“You’ve had it all this time?” Dean asked, bewildered. “Why didn’t you give it to me? All these years I’ve been walking around, feeling naked and incomplete and not once did you think to give it back to me?”

“I didn’t think you’d want it back.” He then looked down. “Plus, you said you didn’t need a symbol to remind you how you felt about me.”

“Yeah, I was lying out of my ass!” Dean rationalized. “Of course I was lying! Are you kidding me? Goddammit Sammy, you moron! Put it around my neck!”

Sam smiled, dimples showing and for Dean it was like the Sun had finally decided to shine after days upon days of hurricanes and storms. He put the Samulet around his brother’s neck and sighed. Dean pressed it down into his chest.

“Fucking finally!” He let out a huge breath as if a burden had been erased.

Unable, and unwilling, to stop himself, Sam came close to Dean and crushed their lips together. Kissing him like he would never get to kiss anyone ever again, like he would soon forget what a kiss was, Sam easily took the upper hand. Dean let him. Somehow, they fell on the bed. Dean broke apart to breathe and Sam, for whom oxygen had become optional, continued kissing his cheeks, his jawline, his neck- anywhere he could reach. Sam’s hand reached Dean’s pants and he rubbed his palm against the growing bulge.

Dean put a hand atop Sam’s and whispered, in a voice that sounded gravel-rough and whiskey smooth, “Sam, stop!”

Sam moved away like he’d been burned, flinging himself off the bed. “Dean, I-”

“No, Sammy, not like that. Get back here,” Dean said, shaking his head and spreading his legs a miniscule bit. Sam looked at him, unsure.

“You don’t have to,” Sam spoke. “You never, ever have to. You don’t even have to bottom, I won’t make you-”

“Sam, I’m gonna count to three and you better be between my legs, Capiche?” interrupted Dean. “One. Two.” He didn’t have to get to three because Sam was already settled between his legs. “I didn’t mean ‘stop’ like that. I just- I remembered how dominant you are in bed and I almost- you know…”

Sam tilted his head to the left, looking for all the world like a lost puppy. Dean could almost imagine the floppy ears and the fluffy tail. Then realization crossed his face and his whole demeanor went from a confused puppy to a smug dog. “Came in your pants?” asked Sam.

Dean’s face went so red, so fast that Sam had to look down to ensure he was still hard. He was. “I mean, obviously I didn’t!” Dean cried, defensive. “I am not a teenage boy. Couldn’t physically, possibly do that! I’m a grown ass man.”

Sam raised his eyebrow. “You really think that being the Consort to the King of hell would have no perks?”

“So you mean- I could?”

“Come in your pants?”

“Shut UP!” Dean hushed him, but then nodded.

“Yeah.” Now Sam was smiling, but it wasn’t mocking. Dean realized that it had never been mocking. Maybe a little amused, but never belittling. If anything, he was more- well, fond, than anything else. Then, his smile grew devious. “I just realized: you have _no idea_ what I can do.” He kissed Dean, who wanted to argue, but wanted Sam’s tongue in his mouth more.

Then suddenly, there were hands all over his body. Two removing his shirt, two unbuttoning and unzipping his pants, one caressing his hair while two were busy grabbing his ass and two more pushing up his tee and tweaking his now-bare nipples.

He opened his eyes, trying to figure out what was happening, but Sam began kissing his neck and behind his ear and over his Adam’s apple, all the while also kissing his mouth, all of which caused him to moan as a heat pooled in his lower abdomen. “Sammy,” he breathed, already close and out of breath. Sam’s mouth stopped kissing him, but everything else continued. He finally gathered enough wits to open his eyes.

Sam’s face was two inches from his own, but his arms were busy supporting him atop Dean. Everything else was invisible. Sam smiled and pushed himself off Dean, going to stand at the edge of the bed and removing his multiple layers, as he felt the hands do the same for him. He lifted his butt off the bed so the hands could get him naked, and they did. When his shoes had been removed, he had no idea.

Even as Sam walked over to his dresser to get the necessary ‘equipment’, the hands already started on him. They were frictionless and silky, smooth as honey, and knew exactly what they were doing. Two of them began working his cock as a mouth deep-throated him. One tongue slipped into his hole- which was well on display- and all the hands turned into mouths, licking and kissing and devouring him whole. “Sam, wh-what the fuck is ha-ah-apenn-ing?” he managed to get out between moans and ah-ah-ah’s. Two mouths closed over his nipples. “I’m close!” he yelled. “Sam, if you don’t stop- I’m so close.” Dean’s whole body twitched as an orgasm started to build.

“Let go, Dean,” Sam suggested, his voice close and breathless.

“Sammy, no, our first time-” he was cut short by his own throbbing orgasm spilling out. The hands slowed to a softer rhythm, pulling all the remaining cum out of him as he lay limply on the bed. Sam climbed back onto the bed and all the hands disappeared. He kissed him and what do you know, he was hard again. “What? That was like no refractory period.”

“Multiple orgasms, Dean,” Sam smiled. “This is, after all, the original home of iniquity and sin.”

“Since when do you believe sex to be sinful?” laughed Dean, all out of breath.

“I don’t,” allowed Sam. “I know it’s all Christianity’s bullshit. I just- it was easier than explaining all the hundreds of thousands of layers of magick across these walls. There’s nothing I can’t do in here. If you can imagine it, I can do it.”

“So… you can read my mind?”

“Yeah, if I wanted to,” Sam smiled, “but even better, I can let you into mine. Moreover, I strongly believe in consent. I’d never violate you like that.”

Dean nodded. Then narrowed his eyes. “So that’s how you did the invisible hands and mouths thing?” Sam nodded, planting a kiss on Dean’s lips but moving off him and settling beside him, knowing his brother had many, many questions for him. “So you could, possibly, summon like Mia Khalifa- or someone?”

Sam frowned. “I never thought about that. I can try.” He flicked a finger and there she stood. “Apparently, yes.”

Dean’s eyes grew wide and his jaw dropped before a frown settling on his face. “What about consent? This couldn’t possibly be consensual.”

Sam frowned at him like he had said a dumb thing. “This is not the real person, you moron. It’s just, a shadow, a 3-D illusion.”

“A hologram?” he asked, getting up and curiously going up to her.

“No, you can’t feel a hologram.” Intrigued, Dean touched her and then jumped like a cat when he touched skin.

“This is freaky,” he admitted. “Make her go away.”

Sam shook his head, the tiniest of smiles crossing his lips, but she disappeared nonetheless. Then, he cocked his head as an idea struck him. Suddenly, there were 2 new Deans and 2 new Sams in the room. He watched as one illusion-Dean kissed Dean’s neck from behind. Dean yelped and then looked wide-eyed at his clone. Stopping in his track, curiosity overwhelming everything else, he gently touched illusion-Dean. He then touched him harder, finally slapping him across the face. “Dean, what the Hell?” yelled Sam.

“Sorry, I was just checking how real it was.”

Sam’s entire face descended into his palm at his brother’s idiocy. “Why are you like this?”

“What do you mean?” Dean asked, feigning innocence.

“There were 20 different ways to do that,” Sam replied. “You chose the Dean Way™.”

“Hey!” Dean indignantly exclaimed. Sam shrugged and then called him back to bed with one finger doing the ‘come hither’ motion. He came hither onto bed and sat atop Sam as their clones looked to Sam, rapt. Sam put his hands on his ass and kissed him just as the door flung open.

There stood Crowley with Clara’s pups. Both the boys looked at him, frozen in their embrace before Sam flicked a finger and covered them up. “This a bad time, boys?” he asked cheekily. The clones mysteriously disappeared.

Dean looked away, blushing while Sam maintained eye contact. “Just trying to officially make him your King. Just as I already am.” Dean tried to get off, but Sam gripped his cheeks harder, digging finger shaped bruises into his skin. For all the wrongness, dean couldn’t help but feel aroused.

Someone he had counted as a friend, even a lower form of being, seeing him sitting naked on his equally naked younger brother’s lap, as his younger brother kissed him and implied that he was about to be fucked, hard and proper, did things to him. Worse, he was sure Sam could feel his dick growing on his abdomen. Sam’s face betrayed nothing, but his hand dipped, finger trailing so close to his hole that he squirmed. Sam remained stoic but Crowley shifted in the teeniest way, making it infinitely clear that he knew _exactly_ what was happening.

Moving to Sam, Crowley nodded, message clearly received. “Yes, my liege.” Then, in true Crowley fashion, he smiled and said, “You are, of course, aware that you must ‘try to officially make him my King’ on the throne. With an audience present.”

 “What?!” Dean asked, speaking for the first time since the exchange had started. “Oh! That is never going to-”

Sam tightened his grip on his ass even further in warning, effectively shutting him up. “If that is all, Crowley.”

“That is all,” nodded Crowley, exiting with the pups and shutting the door behind him.

“Sam!” Dean cried. “We can’t- in front of- I mean, come on! That is humiliating.”

Sam nodded. “I know. Which is why we won’t do it until you want to- if ever.”

“Until I want to?” Dean cried, still perched on his brother’s abdomen. “How can you be okay with it? What do you want?”

“Doesn’t matter what I want,” Sam calmly replied. “These are ancient rites and magical laws laid down hundreds of thousands of years ago by beings far more powerful that we can comprehend. This is not something I asked for. If it were up to me, I would never put you through that.” He grew more agitated as he spoke. “You don’t treat someone you love as a piece of meat or a trophy to be shown off or used as you please. But it is what is it is. This “law” is based in misogyny and homophobia, I know that. They never imagined that a King might choose another man to be his King. They never imagined that two people who were in love might not want to expose their most intimate ways in front of a crowd, or that there might be a Queen of Hell instead, who could physically not make the man she loved sit on her nonexistent dick as she sat on the throne. And what if two platonic best friends wanted to share the throne? Or a mother and son? Or father and daughter? Or any combinations of those? This cruel, sexist “tradition” however, is entwined in spell work so intricate and powerful that not even Rowena could undo this, powered by the Book of the Damned. The only way might be if we found Merlin- he is the greatest sorcerer to ever walk the planet- but he is too powerful and is blocking all my tracing spells with ease. Even if we found him, why would he help the King of Hell? And even if he agreed, there is no guarantee that he would be able to. So no, I am not okay with it. But it doesn’t matter either way.”

“There’s only one thing to do then,” said Dean. “Wait until we can find actual Merlin, Sorcerer to King fucking Arthur of Camelot. Fuck, our lives are weird. Then again, I have been waiting for you to shut up so I can “sit on your dick” without an audience, so…” Sam sighed, letting go of the bad taste stupid sexist policies left in his mouth. He lowered his mouth to kiss Dean, who chastely kissed him back, stopping to say, “Haven’t you ever heard of closing the goddamn door?”

“How do you even know that song?”

“I listened to a lot of your Spotify playlists,” Dean admitted. “I missed you a lot.”

“Even the one titled ‘Dean’?”

“Bold of you to assume that wasn’t the first one.”

“You’ve been on my Tumblr too?”

“What’s a Tumbler?”

“Never mind.”

“Is it a porn site?” Dean asked, half-furious. “Sammy, do you do porn?”

“Oh my fucking God! Of course not, you moron! It’s like Reddit and 4Chan all rolled into one but not as pessimistic.”

“I have absolutely no idea what you are on about.”

“I like your shoelaces,” tried Sam.

“What?” dean asked, now fully bewildered. “My shoes don’t even have shoelaces!”

“So you didn’t steal them from the President?”

“Sam, what?”

“Nothing,” Sam smiled, satisfied for the time being. “Kiss me.”

“No, seriously, lock the door.”

Sam rolled his eyes and looked at Dean, exasperated. “Fine!” he relented, glancing at the door and turning its 3 foot deadlock. “Will you kiss me now?”

“Yes, my liege,” Dean flirtatiously smirked, kissing Sam while rolling his ass against his dick. Sam groaned and threw his head back. Before he could do anything though, Dean’s face crumbled and he got out Sam’s hold.

“Dean, what?” asked Sam as Dean started pacing.

“You were never second best!” Dean cried. “I can barely believe I ever let you believe it. But you were never second best. Not to Benny, not to Cas or Kevin or- or Charlie. You were always my first priority. I get how I led you to believe that you were. I get that. Benny told me what you said to him. I- he wasn’t a better brother. You didn’t betray me. And maybe I didn’t trust you before and that’s on me, but I do now. I don’t just loved you, Sam. I trust you and I respect you. I know you think your life is not worth anything, but it is, I swear it and I can’t let our first time happen without you knowing that. I am honored that you chose me.” Sam opened his mouth, but Dean interrupted him before he could get a single word out. “You- you did choose me, right? This is not something that you're doing for- for making me King or because I belong to you or whatever?”

“You don’t belong to me, first of all,” Sam corrected. “That fire sacrifice only goes one way. And yes, I chose you. Now, we have a lot to talk about, I agree, but seriously, I have not had sex in a 110 years and you standing there naked is driving me nuts, so before I die of blue balls, can we please get started?”

Dean blinked multiple times and then nodded shyly, sitting back down atop Sam with a flushed chest. “We’ll talk later though??”

Sam kissed Dean softly. “Dean Winchester wanting to talk,” he kissed Dean’s neck, “I thought I’d never see the day.” Dean lightly cuffed his head. “But yes, we’ll talk later. Might as well make use of the multiple orgasms and no refractory period.”

“Mmmhmm,” agreed Dean and Sam decided to get right to it, flipping them over and letting his dominant side take over. Dean was reduced to murmurs and groans.

 

They had issues to fix, and they would, but for a few moments, all was right with the world.

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah. I did that. I totally did. Comments and Kudos appreciated. Love you guys. Get some sleep and hydrate.


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